


A Straight Line Down Through The Heart

by mrhd



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Purgatory, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29573520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrhd/pseuds/mrhd
Summary: In Purgatory and after, Dean and Cas reconnect piece by piece.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38
Collections: Profound Bond Gift Exchange: Reunion





	A Straight Line Down Through The Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KaRaEa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaRaEa/gifts).



> _But I swear by your expression that the pain down in your soul  
>  Was the same  
> As the one down in mine  
> That's the pain  
> That cuts a straight line down through the heart  
> We call it love_
> 
> Teeny tiny bit of Dean/Benny at the beginning!

**Reunion 1: The Spirits**

Benny kissing him in Purgatory catches Dean by surprise. He pulls back and gapes at Benny before blurting out, “I’m not into guys.”

Benny blinks, still so close that Dean could count his eyelashes. He absolutely does not.

“My mistake,” Benny says, pulling back.

Dean exhales, but it comes out soft and shaky. “It’s okay, man,” he says.

Benny looks at him curiously, but he doesn’t say anything further. Eventually Dean is able to get his breathing back under some semblance of control. He’s anxious, waiting for Benny to try and talk about it, but he never does, and eventually Dean is able to relax into some semblance of sleep.

He doesn’t sleep well. It’s not a surprise; he’s never slept well. Not here in Purgatory, there’s something about it that makes him much too alert, as if he were on a hunt. Even though he’s the one being hunted. But Purgatory isn’t special. He didn’t sleep much topside, but even so, he’d slept more than he does down here.

Benny doesn’t bring it up again when he and Dean are picking themselves up to keep going once more, or when they set off, so Dean figures he’s in the clear.

He’s wrong.

Benny brings it up again almost a full day later, when he and Dean are struggling through some tough underbrush. “So, what about your angel?” he asks.

“I told ya, we’re not leavin’ here without ‘im,” Dean grunts, kicking at the brush.

“I know, you’re very particular about that point,” Benny says. “‘S why I’m askin’.”

“Askin’ what?” Dean says, starting to bristle.

“You told me you weren’t into guys,” Benny starts, and Dean stiffens immediately, “but it sure seems to me like you’re into that angel of yours.”

Dean’s automatically on the defensive , whacking harder than is strictly necessary. “I’m not in love with Cas,” he says, focusing on cutting through the dense bush so he doesn’t have to think about their conversation.

“Right,” Benny drawls. “I’m sure you’d spend a year in a monster filled wasteland searchin’ for all your friends.”

Dean grunts. He goes back to cutting through the brush, frustrated that it doesn’t part for him. He’s frustrated at the conversation, that Benny would talk about the things he’d rather not, and frustrated at his own stupid feelings bubbling up inside him. He shoves them aside. There’s no time for that, not now. “Don’t got any other friends,” he grumbles instead, careful to continue avoiding eye contact.

Benny seems to drop after that, a reprieve which Dean is grateful for. So long as he doesn’t say anything, Dean can keep ignoring the significant _look_ Benny gives him any time Dean tortures a monster for information.

Dean ignores him. He needs to find Cas, he needs to. It repeats, a mantra now. _Find Cas Find Cas Find Cas_.

And then he does.

Dean’s heart pounds. He knows when they’re close to Cas, he just knows. And then he breaks through the tree line, sees the river in the distance, and his heart is in his throat when he sees him.

Cas.

_Cas!_

Cas is crouched next to the river. He’s closer than he’s been in a year, but Dean feels like they’re worlds apart. Cas looks so small, small and dirty. Dean’s never seen him like this before.

Dean hardly thinks. Emotion overwhelms him. His mind is a riot of relief and fuckin’ joy, just as seeing Cas. After a year of Purgatory, of washed out forests and Leviathans, and scavenging survival, after a year of prayer, Cas in here. He doesn’t have enough thought left to be embarrassed about the way he wraps himself around Cas, full-bodied and desperate.

Cas is stiff against him, and it’s awkward, and not at all what Dean imagined hugging Cas would be like. (He doesn’t let himself wonder about why he’d thought about it before.)

It’s Benny who pushes Cas, prods him into admitting that he’d fled on purpose, out of a misguided attempt to protect Dean. Dean overrides both their objections to his plan. So what if Cas is some kind of leviathan beacon? It all feels so much easier now that Cas is back at his side. Dean feels confident, sure, and he dismisses both Benny’s and Cas’ doubts easily.

He even sleeps decently, when they stop to rest. He wakes up to find himself propped up on Cas’ arm, and is immediately embarrassed by both the position and the small circle of drool on Cas’ dirtied sleeve.

Cas simply says, “You slept well?” and looks satisfied when Dean nods.

Benny gives him another one of his _looks._ Like the rest of them, Dean chooses to ignore it. But the longer they’re with Cas, the more pointed the looks become. Every time Cas and Dean stare at each other a little too long, a little too intensely, every time their touches linger, every time they stand a little bit too close together.

Dean brushes it off. He and Cas have always been like that. They’ve always been intense, with their “profound bond” or whatever it is. Cas in an angel, he doesn’t understand human social norms, and, well, Dean is just used to it by now. Used to feeling the heat of Cas’ body, his breath, sometimes, ghosting across Dean’s face, used to the hand on his shoulder. He’s corrected Cas before, but it never really took, so why keep trying? It’s not like Dean hates having Cas so close.

But then Dean wakes up with his head in Cas’ lap and Cas’ fingers gently resting in his hair. He’s surprised by how relaxed he is, how his first thought is that it feels _good_ , despite the dangers lurking, despite the monsters hunting them. Maybe Benny has a point. Maybe there’s a reason Dean feels safer with Cas around, maybe there’s a reason he starts to feel like he could do anything, take on anything. Benny certainly seems to think so, because the look on his face is not only significant, but smug as well.

But there’s no room to deal with it now. There are still Leviathans on their trail, and they need to get out of Purgatory as soon as possible. When they’re safely on the other side, Dean will think about it.

**Reunion 2: The Bodies**

But Cas doesn’t make it through. Dean fails. He fails to save Cas, just like he failed to protect Sam, just like he failed to keep his family together, just like he failed at being a good partner to Lisa, just like he failed at every goddamn thing he tries to do for the people he loves. He can’t think about it, but it lingers in his brain, his failure. He let Cas down.

It eats at him the way very few things have ever done. The feeling of Cas’ hand leaving his...it sticks with him.

And then Cas is back but he’s...different. One moment he’s very much the same, rumpled and bedraggled the way Dean had last seen him. “Dirty,” Cas had said, quiet and upset, and it had made Dean’s heart ache. But then the next he’s staring off into space, blanking out, and he’s never done that before, not ever, not even when he was tuned into angel radio all the time, not even when he was working with Crowley. Dean doesn’t know what to make of it.

It’s not how he pictured them reuniting.

And then Cas leaves. Again. It doesn’t matter that Dean’s brain is still fixated on the feeling of _wrong_ that he was getting from Cas, he can’t do anything if he can’t even find the guy.

Then he meets Aaron.

Aaron who meets Dean’s eyes over the heads of pretty women and orders a fruity drink, complete with an umbrella. Who looks at Dean from under his eyelashes and accuses Dean of flirting.

Usually, Dean can handle this. He’s friendly, but he’s uninterested. This time, Aaron makes him think of Benny, and of Cas, and Dean gets tongue-tied, starts stumbling over his words and into tables. It’s stupid. Aaron isn’t even Dean’s _type_ , and not just because he’s a guy. He doesn’t have cheekbones that make Dean want to trace them with his fingers, his lips, his tongue, he doesn’t have eyes that Dean can get lost in the intensity of, or lips that are always chapped and soft pink, he’s not _Cas_ and oh. Dean stops in the middle of the road, Baby humming beneath him, struck dumb by his own realization.

He can’t see himself with Aaron. He can’t picture what it would be like to bend down and kiss him, can’t picture what it would be like to cup his face and lean in close, can’t picture what it would be like to press his body against Aaron’s. 

It’s Cas he pictures those things with. Only Cas. And...and he’d written it off, because Cas has always stood a little too close, stared a little too long, touched a little too much. And Dean had let him, because Cas is an angel, because Cas didn’t understand and that made it safe, Dean realizes.

He pulls over and puts his head in his hands.

Benny had been right.

Dean _is_ into Cas. He wants what Aaron was offering with Cas, he wants to take him out for drinks and kiss him over the table, wants to make out against the wall of a bar with him until they’re kicked out, wants to lay Cas out against the backseat of the Impala and undo his shirt buttons with his teeth.

Dean lets himself freak out for a few seconds before rallying himself. There’s still a case to work.

There’s always a case to work. It’s been true Dean’s whole life, one case after another. Lock it up, move on. So he does. There’s always cases, and the bunker to explore, and Sam, Sam to look after, Sam to take care of, Sam who’s going to have to go through trials that Dean can’t take from him.

And if Dean can’t take care of him, well, hopefully an angel can. It does feel like begging, it feels like something dark and sad, to be praying to Cas when he’s not even sure Cas is listening. If whatever is going on to make him seem so off makes him not care.

But it’s worth a shot.

**Reunion 3: The Minds**

Then Cas is back, again, and it’s not like Dean thought it would be, again. He doesn’t know exactly what he pictured for their reunion, definitely not hugs, he learned that the last time, but Cas simply obliterates a few demons and then ties one to a chair.

He’s off again, clipped and short and snide in a way Dean hasn’t seen from him since the early days. But he came, he’s here, and that must count for something, right?

When Dean throws a punch at Cas, it’s half-hearted. He knows Cas is stronger than him, faster. But he has to try. Go down swinging.

Cas catches his wrist as easily as he breaks it.

Dean sinks down to his knees as Cas’ fist collides with his face. Against his cheek. His eye. His temple.

Dean can barely see out of his swollen, bloodied left eye, but he still seeks out Cas’.

Cas’ eyes are cold, distant when he looks down at Dean.

Dean knows it isn’t Cas, that something else is controlling him, because even though Cas had betrayed them, it had never been like this between them. Cas has always been intense, righteous even when he’s wrong, he’s always looked at Dean like he was staring at Dean’s soul, and hell, maybe he was.

Cas has never looked at Dean like this. Not even when they were making deals in the salvage yard, not even when Cas had forgotten Dean, just as he’d forgotten himself, not even when Cas had gone mad with power, had he looked at Dean with such...cold derision in his eyes.

It scares Dean, just as it makes him certain that there’s a way to the real Cas underneath, to his Cas. “I need you,” he says, his voice choked and broken. Just like him.

Then, Dean sees it. He sees the look in Cas’ eyes shift, sees something different shining through.

Cas’ blade clangs to the floor and he picks up the tablet.

Dean doesn’t have time to scream or protest before the bright light emanating from Cas forces him to close his eyes. When he opens them again, Cas looks different, sad, open.

He reaches for Dean’s face, cupping it gently.

Dean flinches automatically, his mind still deep, locked in the fight, as he wraps his own fingers around Cas’ wrist. But then he’s warm, the chill of the crypt disappearing, replaced by a soft, rushing warmth flooding his body. When he blinks his eyes open again his left eye opens all the way, bruises and cuts and swollen flesh erased.

Cas pulls his hand back, but Dean’s fingers are still wrapped around his wrist, just like Cas’ are wrapped around Dean’s no longer broken one.

“I’m so sorry, Dean,” Cas says, and he sounds so upset, so sad, sounds the same way he had when he’d looked at himself and declared himself dirty, as he did when he’d admitted to his fear of returning to heaven.

Dean presses his fingers harder into Cas’ wrist as Cas pulls himself up. He doesn’t hug Cas this time, but they’re looking in each other’s eyes as Cas explains, and that’s enough.

He’s not entirely surprised when Cas leaves at the sound of Sam’s footsteps. His eyes had been deep and intense and Dean had known him. Wherever Cas is taking the tablet, it’ll be safe.

**Reunion 4: The Souls**

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean startles so badly he drops a mug on the bunker floor.

“Jesus, Cas,” he says, heart racing. “I thought we trained you out of doing that.”

Cas is smirking, just a little. He waves his hands and the cup repairs itself, settling itself back into Dean’s hands, the warmth of the coffee bleeding through the ceramic.

“Everything okay, Cas?” Dean asks, watching him. Cas seems...anxious about something.

“I promised I’d find you,” Cas says.

The words ring a sort of dim bell in Dean’s mind, but he can’t catch the thought.

“You don’t remember,” Cas says, very quietly.

Dean frowns at him. “Why...why would I forget something?” he demands, voice going harsher than he intends in a sudden rush of adrenaline. “Who...what...did something to my mind?”

“No one,” Cas assures him, taking a few steps closer, his hands out. It’s such a human gesture, Cas must have taken it from one of them, and Dean relaxes, just a bit. “It was a dream.”

“A dream?”

“You let me in,” Cas confirms. He reaches out, two fingers, hovering just above Dean’s head. “I could remind you.”

Dean nods and tilts his head so his forehead meets Cas’ fingers.

Dean would know it was a dream even without having been told. The forest surrounding them is impossible; trees too tall to have leaves within grabbing height, too large to be so close together, yet Cas and Dean are surrounded by it all, the trees around them thankfully full of color and life, green moss underfoot and equally green leaves above, in touching distance even though they shouldn’t be. The trees crowded together to create a comforting shelter of bark.

It’s like living a video of his own life. It’s very weird.

“This is nice,” Cas says, now and then.

Dean shakes his head, trying to adjust. “Uh, thanks,” he says, because he remembers saying it before. He feels stupid about the compliment. It’s just a fantasy. Just some woods.

Cas looks softer in his fantasy too: not haunted or hunted or despairing.

“Why’re you in my dreams, Cas?” Dean asks, softly. He doesn’t dare speak too loud, give too much voice to the thoughts in his head. He’s afraid of sending Cas running again.

“I feel it when you call for me,” Cas says. 

“Even when I’m not prayin’?”

“I can also sense longing,” Cas says, and he says it so simple, but it’s shattered Dean’s whole world wide open. He longs for Cas, he can admit that much to himself. He longs for his presence, his friendship, for his intense stare and odd touches, longs for the way he just puts himself in the spaces that Dean can’t quite invite anyone into.

Cas looks over his shoulder in the dream and smiles at Dean.

Dean’s own smile is hesitant, unsure. “Well, thanks for comin’,” he ends up saying.

Cas’ smile grows. “I enjoy being in your mind, Dean,” he says.

“Oh,” Dean says, taken aback. He shrugs. “It’s nothin’ special.” He’s not smart, not like Sammy or Kevin or Charlie, he wonders sometimes what it must be like, to have a mind that can do such things, but his mind seems content to only conjure up forests.

“It’s calming,” Cas continues.

“Right,” Dean says. It’s simple, easy, his mind, just like him. Just a nice calming forest. Nothing interesting there.

“That’s not true,” Cas says, frowning.

Dean scowls. “Are you readin’ my mind?”

Cas raises an eyebrow at him. “Of course I am,” he says. “This is your dream, Dean. How else could I be here?”

Dean smiles despite himself. “You’re a real smart ass, you know that?”

“I learned from the best.”

Dean snorts at that. “Nah, you were a smartass when we met.”

Cas’ smile quirks a bit. “You liked that about me.”

“No, I thought you were-” Dean starts, but then he sees Cas try to reign in his smile and he knows. “You fucking asshole, you were reading my mind then!”

Cas has the gall to continue to smile at him. “I had just held your soul against my very being,” he says. “We had just been entwined. I was attuned to you, by that point. It was very hard not to.”

_I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition_ is something that had lodged itself in Dean’s head the moment he’d heard it, the first time he’d heard Cas’ low gravel of a voice. At the moment, he’d tried very hard not to think about what that meant. That Cas had seen him in Hell, had seen what he had become. That Cas had touched his rotten, ruined soul.

He hates thinking about it now.

“I did not think that,” Cas says quietly, trailing his fingers across a leaf.

“Dude,” Dean objects.

“Would you like me to leave?” Cas asks, with a challenging eyebrow.

“Just seems unfair,” Dean grouches. “I can’t read _your_ mind.”

“Unfettered access to my mind would render you comatose,” Cas says matter-of-factly. “Or mad.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean grumbles. “Can’t hear ya without goin’ deaf, can’t see ya without goin’ blind, can’t understand ya without goin’ crazy. I get it.”

Cas frowns a little. “It would be simpler if you could,” he says.

“What does that mean?” Dean asks, crossing his arms over his chest. He feels vulnerable, open to Cas’ piercing gaze and the warmth of his presence in his mind.

“I can feel your longing but you cannot feel mine,” Cas says.

Dean feels like his mind stops, except it can’t have, because Cas is still in it, inspecting the stupid trees it’s conjured up. “You...what?"

Cas smiles, a little sadly. “Different types of longing, I imagine,” he says.

“What-what are you saying?” Dean demands. His heart is starting to race. This feels _important_.

“You told me in the crypt that we are family,” Cas says. “Thank you. I value that, more than I can express.”

“Yeah, of course, man,” Dean mumbles, feeling silly. “I...I meant it.”

Cas smiles. “I know. You said that you need me.”

“I do,” Dean says quickly, before he loses his nerve. “I feel better when you’re around, man, like maybe shit will finally work out for once instead of crashing and burning."

“I’m afraid that I’ve done quite a lot of ‘crashing and burning’,” Cas murmurs, sounding sad again.

No, not sounding. He _is_ sad. Dean knows. Dean can feel it.

“I can feel you, Cas,” he says.

Cas nods. “I...feel now. I did not before I held your soul.”

“Oh,” Dean says. “That’s...um...I’m sorry?”

The smile Cas gives him is dazzling, and Dean’s heart beats faster again. “I’m not,” Cas says. “I have chosen you, Dean Winchester, several times.”

He has, Dean realizes. Cas had chosen Dean when he’d tried to warn him about the angels’ plot, Cas had chosen him when he’d broken Dean out and given him a chance to go after Sam, Cas had chosen him when he dropped the angel blade in the crypt.

Dean doesn’t know what to make of that. He’s unworthy of it, he knows, but he can’t help but be selfishly glad that Cas had chosen him anyways.

“It’s not selfish to take that which I am giving you freely,” Cas says, voice soft. “I want you to have it.”

“What is it?” Dean asks, even though he thinks he knows. He’s afraid of it. Of knowing. Of saying it, of thinking it. It’s too big. If he ignores it, it stays tucked away, safe forever.

Cas’ smile dims just a bit. He leaves the trees and crosses to Dean, cupping his hand around Dean’s cheek, just the way he’d done to heal him.

“Don’t leave,” Dean says, panic flooding him. He doesn’t know how he knows that Cas is about to slip out of his mind, but he does, and it scares him. “Not now Cas, please.”

“You’re waking up,” Cas says, soft. “It’s okay, Dean.”

“No,” Dean says, fisting his hands in the lapels of Cas’ trenchcoat.

Cas startles a little, and stumbles closer.

“Stay,” Dean says, very quietly.

“I’ll find you,” Cas promises him.

**Reunion 5: The Hearts**

Dean stands in the bunker kitchen, blinking in the harsh lights. The mug of coffee is still warm between his hands. His head is spinning, pounding from Cas’ info dump. He shakes it a little to clear it.

“Are you alright?” Cas asks, tilting his head, shifting a bit closer.

He’s always done that, Dean realizes. Ever since the very first time. Tilted his head and got in Dean’s space and _seen_ him.

Dean kisses him.

Cas kisses back, open and inviting.

His lips _are_ just as chapped as they’ve always looked, and he tastes just a bit different from everyone else Dean’s kissed, something brighter. Dean presses closer, chasing it, until his mug bumps into their chests, hot coffee sloshing over the rim.

The discomfort vanishes in an instant, healed by Cas, but Dean hardly notices it in the first place. The mug is gone one instant later anyways, and he can press himself fully up against Cas, from mouth to knee as he slots his leg between Cas’.

Cas moans, unashamed into Dean’s mouth and puts one hand on his face again, cupping it once more.

Dean shivers and clutches at Cas’ coat sleeves.

They don’t break apart until the burning in Dean’s lungs becomes hard to ignore. He’s going to have to work on breathing through his nose, because stopping to breathe when he’s busy kissing Cas is unacceptable. He tilts his head back and moans at the feeling of Cas’ lips on his jawline. Cas presses closer, flat chest and a bulge in his pants to match the one in Dean’s, the scrape of stubble against Dean’s skin where he noses at it.

It does nothing to help steady Dean’s breathing. His heart is beating a wild rhythm in his chest and his lungs are just trying to keep pace with the blood rushing through his body. He can hear his heartbeat in his ears. He can hear the soft sounds of Cas’ breath and the slick sounds of his mouth moving across Dean’s cheek.

Dean feels his cheek flush under the attention. He desperately wants Cas to keep touching him, to never stop. He’s never felt like this with _anyone_ before, the desire to see if they can press close enough that they wouldn’t have to separate again.

It feels huge. It feels fucking terrifying.

Dean tilts his head into Cas’ soft hair and breathes. This close, Cas smells a bit different too than humans, that same kind of bright electricity clinging to his skin, his hair, as Dean breathes him in.

Cas puts one hand on Dean’s left shoulder, right where he used to wear Cas’ brand, and lets his other rest between them, on Dean’s chest over his t-shirt, over his heart. Dean has no doubt that Cas can feel it, pounding away as it is.

“Dean,” Cas says.

“Yeah?"

Cas kisses the hinge of Dean’s jaw. He inhales, and then exhales shakily.

Another gesture so human that Dean’s heart trips in his chest.

“I love you,” Cas sighs, breathing the truth into Dean’s skin.

Dean exhales shakily to match. “Cas,” he sounds, his voice breaking again. He buries his face into Cas’ hair and tries to hang on.

Cas kisses Dean’s skin again. “I know,” he says. There’s the quick, cool press of teeth as he smiles.

Dean lifts his hand and traces the shape of Cas’ ear. _I love you_ , he thinks, hoping it’s loud enough.

From the way Cas pulls back and beams, he thinks it is.

**Author's Note:**

> Profound Bond is quite a lovely server that I'm glad to have joined recently! NotChuck, I hope you like this!!
> 
> Title is from Origin of Love from Hedwig And The Angry Inch.
> 
> The ever kind [Missy_dee811](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy_dee811/works) and [BlossomsintheMist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlossomsintheMist/pseuds/BlossomsintheMist) both gave this a look over for me.


End file.
